European League. Spain-Czech Republic 1:3. And the others of the 5th day….

What happened in this 5th day of Golden European League?
In the Pool A, Sweden found her first victory against Slovakia 3-0, in a balanced match despite the results. These are the scores: 27-25, 32-30, 25-21.

Belgium won against Estonia 3:0 (29-27, 25-19, 25-19). Igor Grobelny (Belgium) was the best scorer of the match with 14 points.

Standing Pool A:
Estonia 12
Belgium 11
Slovakia 4
Sweden 3

In the Pool B, Turkey secured their qualification for the Final Four 2018 in Karlovy Vary, despite the 2-3 defeat against The Netherlands with following results 24-26, 25-21, 25-22, 23-25, 15-9. The Netherlands that, in a sold out Sports Hall De Basis in Sliedrecht, can still equal Turkey with matches won and ranking points, but not with their match sets ratio.
Top scorer of the match was still the dutch captain Nimir Abdel-Aziz, with 26 points and 50% attack.
In the same Pool, Slovenia won 3:2 against Ukraine with this results: 25-20, 21-25, 21-25, 25-23, 16-14). Slovenia won quickly the first set and killed the possibility for Ukraine to take one place for the Final Four in Karlovy Vary, but despite this after a good fight they claimed the next two sets. But it was Slovenia that took a well-deserved 3-2 as victory, with Ziga Stern and Jan Klobucar like the top scorers for the team, authors of 16 and 14 points. Ukraine’s Oleh Plotnytskyi was the absolut best scorers of the match with 20 points. Despite the victory, Slovenia remains at the end of the standings in Pool B.

Standing Pool B:
Turkey 12
Netherlands 9
Ukraine 7
Slovenia 2

Pool C.…….Portugal won against Finland at tie break, in a really balanced match with this scores: 25-22, 21-25, 25-21, 28-30, 15-10.
Balanced since the first set, with the home team strongly supported by their fans, closed by the setter of Portugal Miguel Rodrigues. Second set was closed by Finland with an attack of Antti Mäkinen. And the match was played point for point until tie-break, decided by the block of Filip Cveticanin that gave a two-point advantage to Portugal and the match finished 15-10, with the finnish Samuli Kaislasalo best scorer of the match with 22 points and 44% attack, followed by Portugal’s Alexandre Ferreira with 21 points and a good 50% attack.

In the other match, Czech Republic won 3:1 in Spain and the results were 25-22, 24-26, 21-25, 21-25. Despite a not good start, in fact Spain won the first set, Czech Republic played with a great performance in serving and blocking and conquered the well-done victory. The best scorers of the match were the two opposites, Spain’s Andres Villena and Czech Republic’s Jan Hadrava, with respectively 32 and 26 points. For Czech Republic is the second win, and this team, who played in Spain was solid in reception too.